Guide To The Zealot Paladin BuildSkills Now I will discuss what skills will be needed for this build. Even though zeal and Fanaticism are the core skills in this build, there are also other skills you can put points into to make this build even more effective. Note: Items that have + to skills dont add to the synergy bonus. You have to actually put a point to get the bonus to a skill. Combat Skills Sacrifice: 1 point for prerequisite. In 1.10 beta this skill is a synergy that gives +12% damage to zeal. It would be wise to maybe putting a few points into sacrifice in the beginning of the game so you get a big leap in damage when you finally get zeal at level 12. Smite: 1 point for prerequisite. Smite is not needed in this build. I personally dont like smite even though bashing and stunning enemies seems tempting. Holy Bolt: 1 point for prerequsite. This skill is not needed in this build. I dont care if blizzard gave it like 4 synergies and increased the damage holy bolt sucks. Zeal: Max Out (20+ points). Zeal is the main attacking skill and should be on your left click as soon as you get it. In 1.10 this skill gives you a nice bonus to damage after skill lvl 6 and higher along with any points you put in sacrifice. Since the paladin lacks big and flashy group wide range attacks like an Amazon or a sorceress has, zeal is the best paladin attack for groups allowing him to strike multiple enemies quickly. The bad side to zeal is that as of the 1.10 beta zeal still has the damn zeal bug. The bug is that if any of 5 swing miss a monster, all the swings that follow that swing will miss also. So if the first swing misses, all the 4 that follow if will miss, etc. Which can be very friggin annoying epecially in a group of monsters. Charge: 10-20 points. Charge is a good back up skill. Mostly saved for a unique monster or an act boss. It can deal huge amounts of damage to a single target while pushing them back in order to unleash another charge. Vengeance: 1 point. Vengeance is way too slow and uses too much mana for this build, but Vengeance can be useful against immune to physical monsters that always seem to appear alot in nightmare and hell difficulty. 1 point is all that is needed. Any + to skills equipment that you will wear will take care of any additional points in this skill. Blessed Hammer: 1 point for prerequisite. This skill is a joke. It basically sucks. Sure, additional damage to undead is nice and all but the damage is so little even with that concentration/Blessed Hammer bug that gives more damage to it. The only time I use it is when I'm bored and I keep clicking to see how many hammers I can get to rotate around my paladin. Conversion: Ignore this skill. I never had a chance to experiment around with conversion enough to actually tell you if its good or not. My friend's paladin had conversion and it seemed to get him outta jams while he was fighting large boss packs of enemies. Holy Shield: 10-20 max out if you can. This skill can be a life saver. Just putting a few points in almost gurantees that your shield will have 60%-75% chance to block. Blocking every 3 outta 4 hits means you're definitely going to survive longer plus it adds to your total defense which also makes you harder to be hit Fist of the Heavens: Ignore This skill. I've never used this skill. Its not needed for this build. I've never tried a build centered around FoH perhaps now that it has synergy bonuses I might... Defensive Auras This one is easy to follow. You dont have to even touch the defensive auras tree. Save your points for combat skills and offensive auras. Most of the def. aura skills suck anyway. You might want to get defiance just so you can get the synergy bonus that Holy Shield has (Its like + to def or something). Offensive Auras Might: 1 point for prerequisite. Holy Fire: 1 point for prerequisite Thorns: 1 point for prerequisite. Thorns is really overrated. The whole damage returned idea isnt really going to phase monsters, especially all those enemies in 1.10 with huge amounts of life but still dont do alot of damage. Unless you're planning on pissing off whirlwinding barbarians, this skill isnt needed. Blessed Aim: 1 point for prerequisite Concentration: 1 point for prerequisite. If you happen to have any free points you might want to put maybe a couple more points into concentration just so you can do more damage. It is a long way to level 30 after all. Holy Freeze: 1 point for prerequisite Holy Shock: Ignore this skill Sanctuary: 1 point for prerequisite. Hooray, more damage to undead! This skill can be actually be handy if you just want to get those annoying undead bastards off of your back. Also handy if you like doing mephisto magic find runs since most of the enemies in the Durance Of Hate is undead, but since MF is nerfed in 1.10 I doubt anyone will be doing it. Fanaticism: Max out (20+ points). This is this main aura you will be using in this build so get used to it's orangeish-red glow. It gives you everything you need: attack rating(AR), damage, and most importantly increased attack speed(IAS). In 1.10 fanaticism isnt resticted to a 7 yard radius like it was. The radius now increases per level making it the ultimate party aura. Conviction: 5-20 max out if you can. This will be your back up aura. Used mostly aura flashing. Aura flashing is where you set two auras on seperate hotkeys, perferably fanaticism and conviction. You turn conviction on and when the enemies get the aura under them, quickly switch back to fanaticism and attack them. Aura flashing has been nerfed or something in 1.10 beta. It seems that the time to takes for a players/monster to gain an aura has been shortened so basically it throws the aura flashing idea out. But the best improvement in 1.10 is that conviction actually can remove a monsters immunity! Which is very handy in hell difficulty where all monsters have an immunity to something. A necromancers lower resist/ampify damage also can remove immunities. If you have a necromancer in your party there really isnt any need to use conviction. Just make the necromancer curse the monsters. What order to put these skills in Before level 30: Slowly try to get the prerequisites. At level 12 and beyond try to get 4 points into zeal so you will be doing the 5 capped hits. Charge really isnt as important as zeal so 1 or 2 points will suffice. Slowly work up the fanaticism hierarchy of offensive auras (Might, Blessed Aim, Concentration, Fanaticism) only putting 1 point into each. Put more points into concentration if you notice that youre doing very little damage. Use blessed aim if your AR sucks and you seem to not be able to hit anything, but the AR bonus zeal gives should take care of any AR problems. Level 30 and Beyond:Once you get to level 30(this should be around the end of Act 4, starting into Act 5), you can start working on getting fanaticism maxed out. You shouldnt really be putting points into anything else until fanaticism is maxed. After then you can work on conviction or better yet max out zeal or charge. After all that, you can throw anymore points into holy shield. Stat Points Being mainly a melee character, this build will need alot of strength(str). Youre probably looking at about 200+ around level 75. A paladin doesnt really need a shitload of str like a barbarbian needs but every little bit helps and your equipment will also help increase that str up in the 200s. Your paladin also needs alot of dexterity (dex). Dex not only helps your AR, but also adds to your total blocking. Paladins have the highest blocking of all the characters so its realistic seeing a paladin with 60%-75% total blocking right off the bat. AR is really important. I am an AR freak. I go nuts if I'm not hitting a monsters at least 80% of the time. Its really up to you. Having fanaticism and zeal can allow you to slack off on putting points in dex, but during nightmare and hell difficulty the monsters defense will catch up with you and you'll have no choice but put more points in dex. You'll probably want somewhere between 150-200+ AR. But you can never have too much AR. ;) Vitality can be important or not very important. Its personal perference. Paladins gain life per level. If you see that you're getting your ass kicked alot start putting more points into life and get some charms that give you more life. Having alot of leech life also can factor in how much life you want. Energy really isnt needed alot in this build. Zeal barely uses mana and the auras (except prayer but who uses that?) dont use any mana. Just find an item with mana leech and you will never have to worry about mana again. On To Page 2 - Items |